How Hollow Knight Became One of The Greatest Indie Games In History
Vložit
- čas přidán 13. 12. 2023
- spoilers for the game start at 9:20 of the video
Had some fun doing some research on why I've been seeing this little hollow knight guy everywhere. I hope you guys have fun watching :D
-
Support me here (Patreon):
/ unknownsir
Tiktok:
/ realunknownsir
Twitch:
/ unknownsir
Twitter:
/ realunknownsir - Hry
That sense of accomplishment from being tough bosses is unmatched
damn right. when i first beat grimm it was such a good feeling
While the sense of accomplishment is great, I enjoy mastering the boss much more to be honest. I love when you can feel yourself getting better at a boss and getting more and more used to their attacks up until you master it.
I beat the game a few months ago and even got all the way up to 112% but haven’t been able to finish the final pantheon. Literally the last and only thing I have left to do in the entire game But everytime I give it another round of attempts I always put that 2 hour (ish) long video of your final pantheon victory and I play along with it lol.
@@nonprawfit I have beaten it, I also wish you the best. Uhhhh, hopefully you don't explode out of annoyance from the fucking Big Ass Moth Bitch, she's goddamn hard
the bosses are good the trash mobs are annoying as shit
The low price tag, even when not on sale, made me expect Hollow Knight to be a small and short game. I explored through the first 4 areas of hallownest and was surprised to find a fifth... and then another... and another. "This game is bigger, and more interesting, than I expected!" Then I got the first ending and thought "that was pretty underwhelming, but it *is* an indie game so maybe that's all they could afford to do." Then I learned from the community that it was just the "bad ending" and I thought "this is a big map, surely I've explored through the whole game by now, maybe I just missed something." I went back exploring and I was shocked to find another new area... and ANOTHER after that. When I stumbled into Kingdom's edge I was hit with genuine wonder and awe: "How big IS this game???" I had no more expectations after that, Hallownest proved to me that I couldn't guess its true size and it was such a joy to continue finding MORE where I thought there couldn't possibly be. Only by engaging with the community could I be *sure* that I had seen all of Hallownest, after completing the "dream no more" ending. And that was just the joy of exploration this game gave me; not to mention the fun and challenging combat and platforming, the deep and captivating story, beautiful art and exquisite music. Absolutely my favorite game I've ever played, and it's *ludicrously* under-priced.
The same happened to me. I saw the game on xbox gamepass and I heard people liked it a lot and said it was an amazing game. So I said ok Im gonna give it a try, looks like a nice and short game to play. And now here I am with 150+ hours in the game and I even bought it on Steam and made 112% again with P5 and PoP.
Some people 100% the game, then find a breakable wall in the howling cliffs and get sent on a map-wide hunt for 9 minibosses, a regular boss, and one of the 3 hardest bosses in the game, and one of two charms. Then they see a suspicious ceiling in the royal waterways and triple the playtime. More games need this "figure it out" attitude, because it's just so awesome.
i thought it wpuld be a nice lil quirly 5hour long game or something, just a solid 4/5 hour of my weekend's evening session and i would be done,
immediately got entramced by the main menu's presentation and BGM, and holy sh"t it just kept going on and on for hours "how big is this game wtf"
rest assured it was living rent free in my head for the whole week
It's honestly kinda sad that it took such a criminally underpriced game to go on _sale_ in order to be given the recognition it truly deserved
What makes me so happy about this game is how it proves that you don't need a AAA studio or a multi-million dollar budget to make one of the greatest games of all time. You just need true passion.
The first time I played Hollow Knight it was free to play for playstation plus. My brother had randomly downloaded it but hadn’t played it yet. Then, one day I sat down to play some games and asked my brother if there were any new ones (I was really bored of all the other games we had). When he showed me Hollow Knight he told me “This is the type of game you would love playing!”
And he was damn right.
So then I ended up buying it for the switch bc I didn’t want to wait for my turn on the playstation. I was LITERALLY obsesssed with the game right after my first play.
this happened to me also, i tried it when it was free on ps plus and i ended up buying it in pc and getting all the achievments
Wow, this exact same thing happened to me
Yeah I started playing it because it was on ps plus extra
I have 150+ hours on this game and still haven't done godhome ending
I have 850+ hours on this game and still haven't beaten Absolute Radiance.
@@goddessdeedeebubblesofimag7789 i have 300 hours and i have beaten every boss on radiant , i am generally curious on what youre doing 😂😂
@@kappa1021don’t know how many hrs I have but I didn’t grow up with video games and didn’t even have a controller before I played HK a couple of years ago. My coordination was so bad in the beginning I literally learned jumping, now I can sometimes kinda pogo. I took hours for a lot of early bosses my first playthrough, especially Hornet 1. Still haven’t beaten the second Crystal Guardian and Grimm, let alone Radiance. It’s so fun getting better at every little thing and being able to discover things every step of the way in these beautiful landscapes full of weird surprises. I so love Hollow Knight.
its hard af@@kappa1021
@@kappa1021same hours, not the same results
although I completed the 5th pantheon a long time ago, but I didn't pass all the bosses on radiant
Another Hollow Knight video to watch while WAITING FOR SILKSONG 💀💀💀
the fact that I’m watching this video while hollow knight is on another tab waiting for me to unpause
The fact that I'm watching this while Hollow Knight is running on my Switch waiting for me to unpause
Speaking from my own experience with the game, I believe that a major contributing factor to Hollow Knight’s success is what it provides that most other games neglect or outright avoid, which is that feeling of genuine exploration and player-driven discovery.
It seems very ironic to say this, as we live in the age of every single game being an open world experience, but there aren’t actually that many games that want you to explore and find things for yourself. The modern video game climate largely views the idea of the player getting lost as “bad game design”, and the reason for this is because when some players get stuck and cannot figure out how to progress, it leads to them quitting the game and never picking it back up. With video games appealing to a far wider audience today than they did 10-15+ years ago, studios wish to modify their newer releases to accommodate people who were never exposed to the “lack of handholding” that older titles were and are known for today. They want as many people to stick around and keep playing the game for longer, because that increases the likelihood that those players will go on to buy the studio’s next release.
That’s all well and good, but what that mindset fails to recognize is the legitimacy and potential of the experience a game can give to a person by letting go and allowing them the chance to get stuck in that way. There are many people, myself included, who enjoy being able to wander a game’s world and discover places and events for ourselves. It feels empowering, and develops a sense of personal achievement and reward, when we’re asked to find the way ourselves. And that’s where Hollow Knight is able to shine. Team Cherry have discussed their game design philosophy in past interviews, stating that they believe their players to be capable of understanding what to do, and how they are okay with many players missing content in their game, as they believe it makes that stuff all the more special for those who did find it. They’re not looking to make a fan out of everyone who picks their game up. They had a vision for a particular kind of experience, and they made that experience, whether it appealed to people or not. And it just so happens that it did appeal to quite a lot of people, in fact.
Dark Souls was in much of the same boat, and that’s a big part of why you see so many people compare Hollow Knight to it. Putting aside all of the surface-level similarities, they share a pretty similar design philosophy of not guiding the player to the goal and having them overcome tremendous challenges in order to reach the end. FromSoft went for this style of game and saw huge success as a result, which is reflected in how popular they‘ve become over the past decade. And I think the same story is true of Hollow Knight: it held tightly to its vision, and the developers delivered an incredibly deep and high quality experience in the process.
Hollow Knight was simply the right type of game to come out at the right period of time. It’s something that a lot of people wanted - some clearly not even _aware_ that they wanted it - and they were happy and enthusiastic about it when it showed up.
Joyous day i won the custody battle for my kids
Edit: thanks for the 200 likes
Inshallah I get my dog back too
Nice but.. what abt ur ex? I get it, theyre always dickheads, but cmon, they love the kids just as much as you, have a heart.. or don’t… it’s not my choice, but if My parents were going through a divorce, I’d want shared custody
Damn what ?
Ain't no way someone with your record has kids stop capping
It will surely be a more joyous day, when silksong releases in the near century. 😅
@@MonkeShrubb dude please shut up. You have just about 40 letters of info on the dude and you think you know better? You are either a narcissist, an idiot or a genius if you think you can figure it out from one sentence
Bro this video was so awesome. I can't believe you don't have over 100k subs. The editing and script was just amazing. Please just get to 100k.
played this game years ago but I still get goosebumps when i watch reviews. love this game! so excited for silksong!
3:44 when that theme started it just hit
i cant even explain all the reasons this game is probably my favourite
If you want more proof that the community LOVE this game they have made so many mods!
Talking about mods you guys have to try Pale Court! It feels like vanilla content :)
I would love to play vocalized one day
... hot take, Hegemol's boss fight is worse then Absolute Radiance
Pale court, hallownest vocalized, more charms, many more charms, custom trials, multiplayer mod, all those forsaken randomizers... really quite a ton of content from the community!
I loved this game so much that before people knew about this game like they do now (2018, maybe 2019. The game didn't come to PS4 until 2018 I believe), I walked around with a sign advertising the game and people were completely confused. They asked if I was getting paid by them and I told them no, that it was all passion. I still have that sign. It has the Hollow Knight on one side and Hollow Knight in shadow form on the other.
One of the best games for sure.
My explanation: it's fun
U reflect ur own self in the character (knight) that's why it's really popular, u choose ur own charms ( the way u play)
First entry of city of tears + first time hearing music hits harder than Pantheon Radiance
Hollow Knight is the only game to ever defeat me when it comes to getting all achievements. I have 100% the Dark Souls Trilogy, Sekiro, Elden Ring, and am making Progress on Armored Core 6. I've played plenty of other hard games and gotten all achievements despite thier difficulty. But not Hollow Knight. Pantheon of Hallownest is just to damn hard. That just goes to show what a goddamn masterpiece it is.
AINT NO WAY BRO BEAT P5 WITHOUT VENGEFUL SPIRIT
found suscat in the wild
Lmao and w/o full soul and mask too. Wtf
If there was a way I could tattoo what it felt like to beat the White Palace on my body I would...God I love this game
6:50
As a relatively newer member of the community this made me laugh so much. Wait till he finds out the plan to sacrifice mossbag.
I appreciated the background knowledge of how this game got popular, subscribed.
i love it when this game gets the praise it deserves
Me too
Same
Hollow Knight is the Elden Ring of metroidvanias. Just when you think you’ve explored the whole map, there’s about 3 more areas you have definitely not discovered. And then they drop free DLC, all for less than the price of todays “micro”transactions, I had to buy it three times to justify what I experienced.
Excellent video! Keep up the interesting work.
Picked it up from game pass, played it blind, absolutely fell in love. That's actually how I found one of my other favourite games, Celeste.
Good video! Recently just got done playing the game, can't wait for Silksong!
This game is just a real miracle. A tiny team with tiny budget, making one of, (at least top 10) best looking, playing, AND sounding games of all time. It's legitimately hard to find anything wrong with it. So the moment people with ten times budget and 10 or more times bigger dev teams excuse royally fucking up by saying game dev is so impossible - straight bullshit
I got hollow knight on release. After Ori and the blind forest, I really started searching for the next great 2d indie metroidvania. In the past, I loved the 2d metroid series and Ori had recaptured that feeling. Hollow knight was a game I bought on a whim and I remember playing maybe 2 hours of it and then deciding it wasnt for me. During the release, it had mixed reviews on steam if you can believe that; though, I think thats because it had some bugs (no pun intented). I came back to it after the first dlc was released and decided to beat it... After that, it became one of my favorite games of all time. It just goes to show you that sometimes your first impression of a game really doesnt matter if the game is this good.
Hollow Knight is visually and storywise very balanced game - more so than most indie games. Mostly because art guy had background in animation, you can see it in the way they used parallax, depth and fake lighting effects, just like in old school animations. There is enough of story scattered around the world, so the game doesn't feel like a purposefully too mysterious. In addition to this, typical metroidvania stuff is done way above average level (movement itself is really solid and responsive), game has a lot to discover, and finding new stuff is done in somewhat balanced way, more so than in many games. Although playing the game without any guides to maybe 70% wasn't that fun, game became more fun when you already know most of the world locations and have to still figure out the rest of the game (and there is a lot of this to do). Now that everything about this game is pretty much documented, players can make traversal and item collection parts easier if they wish and then tackle the bosses, which are pretty difficult for casual players.
I thought you were a million sub guy with like over 100k views on the video or smth, only cuz of how good the vidoe was
Seriously tho thanks I love this game and happy you discovered why is it so great, and good editing and commentry!
spoilers for the game start at 9:20 of the video
Great video, glad it was on my recommended
We all love this little murder guy 😊
This was a great video, you definitely deserve more subscribers than you have with this quality of content.
I like this guy
I started out with watching my mom play it back in like 2017-2018, thinking it looked boring, then finally giving in and watching a video because CZcams wouldnt stop recommending the same random game theory video to me about it and i thought it was interesting, then i looked at more content and realized “oh shit ive been missing out” and asked for HK for Christmas last year, i got it and was frustrated by the difficulty at first, but now ive 112% the game and have radiented NKG, now im desperately waiting for silksong 😂
Edit: 6:28 this is the video kept popping up in my recommended lol
If Hollow Knight was released today in its finished state, it would be bigger than Hades, bigger than Undertale, bigger than most AAA games released in the same year. It would be unanimously praised as a masterpiece - it already is praised as such, it's just taking its time
5:22 it is like dark souls but only because dark souls is essentially a 3d metroidvania, it has that fun little thing where there's a closed door and a checkpoint behind it and you go so far away from the checkpoint but eventually open that closed door and then you have the same checkpoint but it's essentially a new one, and that's like one of the staples of the metroidvania.
Your excitement is palpable.
In all my hours playing this game I must have smacked my keyboard two hundred times when I died. But I wasn't mad at the game, I was mad at myself. Because the game is fair and fun. You keep coming back because YOU know that you can do better.
It is rare for me to even get to the end credits of a video game but with Hollow Knight not only did I finnish the game, I played it to completion (112% I think it was). I’ve never been as immersed in a game than I was playing Hollow Knight. For me it’s easily a top 5 game.
That sheer excitement when you beat the pantheon of hallownest is amazing.
Amazing video dude, very underrated channel
"I see this guy that looks like he doesn't have a single thought behind his head"
-UnknownSir
"No mind to think... No will to break..."
-A Certain Wyrm
Wait... Dark Souls inspiration? This is a HOLLOW knight that DROPS his currency when he dies, set in a FALLEN civilization where everyone seems to be UNDEAD, the lore is CRYPTIC and fragmented, and generally structured as a BOSS RUN sequence, where the music is EERIE and depressing but beautiful. I think the only two big differences is that HK is 2D instead of 3D and that it's insects, not human zombies.
fr, also having a castle area midgame that is considered the peak of the game is the cherry on top
my gosh when i say i kick and giggle whenever a new hk vid comes out
4:43 is where he says the “reason”
Amen to that bro. I loved this game so much I had a artist friend make me an oil painting. It's my gamer icon thingy ⬅️ 😂
They really teased us with Silksong. Broke my heart when they said we could play it this year, lmao.
2024 is coming.
I absolutely love this game. Recently got into it and I already got to 101%. I beat the final boss multiple times already to get all the endings.
I still can’t beat nightmare king grimm tho lmao 😂
This was one of the games where I felt like a child again. You search around the endless dungeons. So many different routes and no idea what is the right one. And in the end you know you have grinded every corner only to see that you were at a 82 percent. Knowing that the full completion is more than a 100%. One of the best games of this millennium. Only rivaled by the Sea of Stars. And not really a rival. Both are amazing.
“Has more positive reviews than Undertale itself!”
*proceeds to play a clip of Deltarune*
The reason people say it is like Dark Souls, because it kinda is. You could describe it as a souls-like metroidvania. I doubt it was even intentional, and that doesn't taking anything away from the originality of the game. It is very unique in its own right, but I can understand the comparison. The way you progress through areas by defeating enemies that respawn. The fact you rest at benches (like bonfires) to replenish health, the fact you unlock new areas by defeating bosses, etc.
The lore of Hollow Knight is one you can start to piece together before you look at the stuff other community members put together. The game is not heavy-handed in exposition, nor is it so cryptic that you need to look at theory videos or go to community forums to piece it together. It sprinkles its story gradually throughout to give you a good picture.
People compare Dark souls and thos based on one singular basic format of a mechanic" Go place, kill boss, gain new way to rea or way to kill boss(lvl up in dark souls due to mass soul/rune gain) do that till end kill final boss and then become what final boss was" that how to newcomers its a metrodvania soulslike
Amazing video! Although... I did got spoiled here and there 💀
Never played hollow knight but have been looking at it closely for a week now, I think this video game the final push to play it.
3:45 SHAW
compy blew up n came back to drop this masterpiece
awesome silly video
I dont even know how i got into HK, cause looking back at my purchase history, I bought it at release for 15 bucks. It must've had a relatively decent blow up on release day too.
FRICK YES, NEW HOLLOW KNIGHT PRAISE BECASUE HOLLOW KNIGHT FRICKING DESERVES IT EVEN SEVEN YEARS LATER
"I see this guy that looks like he doesn't have a single thought behind his head..." He looks like that because he really doesn't ;)
Bro really beat p5 without even getting shade soul, while me having all charms, all upgrades with 112% completion cant get past freaking zote
I remember when I first played nobody was saying it was good. I beat it in 2017. Which was years before it blew up...at least a year
I just got this game this year and It is MY GAME OF THE YEAR. I love Witcher 3 but this is seriously good for its time...
I swear I've seen like 5 of these videos in the last 3 months that all basically have the same thumbnail and title
It’s so popular because it’s so cozy
bro sounds kinda like bladed angel
It's funny when you said that he looks like he doesn't have a single thought inside his head, because the proragonist actually lacks the ability to think, speak or have any emotion really.
Love the video❤❤
what the heck is manor lords
i know you spent a long time making this video ill reference you in a future video of mine similar to yours
Please send this video to asmongold and his subreddit. He needs to play this for real this time
This is my favorite game
Game fun,Game good 👍
Excellent Video!
Double Props on beating P5 if you did that shit on a keyboard
Why does everyone think platformers are hard on keyboard?
Honestly, I think we're conditioned to at this point (I certainly am), But obviously if you've never touched a controller, a keyboard is going to be easier, (or god forbid you haven't used either and you try to tap on the enemies)
I guess it depends on what kind of consoles you had growing up or if you only used PC's
If you happen to have a controller and computer lying around your house, give it a try.
Genuinely thanks for asking! I've never really thought about it before, and it's interesting to consider.
@@tavandy6183 I have played with both and they really feel pretty similar I just think that keyboard allows for way more precision especially in games like celeste where it's a requirement
@@W42P That's fair. Everyone has their own preferences. Might be because the first platformers were out on consoles so most people kinda just associate platformers with controllers.
I think you brushed off the dark souls comparison a little too fast. The way this game tells its story and the way the world and bosses are designed are sooo soulslike.
Now beat every boss in radiant difficulty! :)
Nice video
0:27 *undertale* - *proceeds to play deltarune content*
MILK
And my friend still wouldnt play the game as "its just an unpopular indie game"
9:28 did u never get shade soul…?
This was a good ass vid
Top 10 video game ever created
This game is like darksouls cause hollow night is su!sidal arthorias from dark souls.
Well, there a bunch of other stuff but it definitely made me think of darksouls on my blind playthrough
underrated
Indubitably
This game thought me that I don't like 2D sidescrolling games. And I think all the hype around it also made me feel a lot more disappointed when I played it.
You beat Absolute Radiance on your first try!?
You deserve more subscribers! Epic video :]
0:25 ish FŲCKİNG *WHAT?!*
Not the third most, but the most wishlisted game on steam.
You beat Absolute Radiance first try?
niceeee
Great, now beat every boss on radiant mode (you might change your mind)
I did. I sure haven't
PAFANADA!
Because it's good.
Cuz is good.
One of the most popular games of all time was made bY 4 people
Do you really played it with a keyboard?